Stephen Bannon’s Quiet Power Grab

Amid the chaos that unfolded at airports throughout the United States and abroad in the 24 hours after Donald Trumpsigned an executive order barring the entry of non-U.S. residents from seven majority-Muslim countries and suspending the entry of refugees, the president quietly issued three more executive orders—one of which reshuffled the National Security Council and granted controversial White House strategist Stephen Bannon a regular seat in security meetings at the highest levels of government.

In yet another flurry of executive orders issued on Saturday, Trump ordered the Pentagon to present a 30-day plan to defeat the Islamic State, issued a five-year ban on domestic lobbying and a lifetime ban on international lobbying for administration officials, and signed a memorandum elevating Bannon to a key national security role. Along with White House chief-of-staff Reince Priebus, the former Breitbart executive will sit in on the principals committee, a meeting of the most senior security officials in the U.S. government, including Secretary of Defense James Mattis and—should he be confirmed—Trump’s Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson. According to the memo, the director of national intelligence and the joint chiefs of staff will only attend the high-level meetings when the topics of discussion relate to their “responsibilities and expertise,” The Washington Postreports.

The move marks the latest in a string of events signaling Bannon’s ascent to power in the West Wing. In the little over a week since Trump delivered his divisive inaugural address dripping within populist rhetoric, the president has signed a slew of executive orders written by Bannon and White House advisor for policy Stephen Miller, notably, Friday’s immigration order that incited a swift backlash. CNN reports that before the order was issued, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and the Department of Homeland Security reached the conclusion that Trump’s executive action did not apply to green card holders from the seven countries—Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Iran, and Iraq—but Bannon and Miller overruled that decision, and said that the D.H.S. would allow entry to green card holders on a case-by-case basis. (During an interview with NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Priebus denied that the White House “overruled the D.H.S.”)

On Saturday night, a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York issued a national stay on deportations of individuals previously granted visas or refugee status who already arrived in the U.S. The judge’s decision marks the first constitutional roadblock the Trump administration has faced, but a number of the other executive orders the president has signed have raised legal concerns. Few in the West Wing other than Bannon and Miller are reportedly aware of what the executive orders Trump has issued at a breakneck pace really contain, as legal experts, affected agencies, and lawmakers have been largely left in the dark. But for Bannon—who has described himself as a “Leninist” who wants to “destroy the state”—it is simply the latest move in the ideological game of chess he is playing.